Various methods and systems for speech synthesis, including text-to-speech applications, have been heretofore developed. For example, reference is made to the co-pending patent application Ser. No. 240,694 filed Mar. 5, l98l (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,135) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,059, issued to Lin et al and assigned to the current assignee.
It is important in such speech synthesis systems that the proper accent be placed at the proper syllable boundaries to provide accurate synthesis of human speech. In addition, it is desirable to have proper syllable boundary determination in a word processor system which provides hyphenation of a word at the end of a text line.
A number of writers in theoretical linguistics have provided abstract principles and rules for syllabification, such as "Aspiration, Tenseness and Syllabification in English" by J. E. Hoard, LANGUAGE, Volume 47, Number 1, March, 1971, pages 133-140; "The Syllable in Phonological Theory" by Joan B. Hooper, LANGUAGE, Volume 48, Number 3, September 1972, pages 525-540; "Syllable-Based Generalizations in English Phonology" by Daniel Kahn, Ph.D. Dissertation for the University of Massachusetts, reproduced by I.U. Linguistics Club, December 1976; and "A Demisyllable Inventory for Speech Synthesis" by J. B. Lovins et al, Speech Communication Papers presented at the 97th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, ed. Jared J. Wolf and Dennis H. Klatt, New York Acoustical Society of America, 1971, pages 519-522.
However, the prior art has not produced a computer simulation of syllable rules which may be practically implemented in voice synthesis systems such as text-to-speech systems or which may be used in word processing techniques to provide hyphenation.